The Flight of a Chicken Hawk
by CampionSayn
Summary: Is there anything more splendid than watching griffons fly after sucking the blood from sacrificial rams and bulls? Terry very much doubts it. AU TerryxRex, hints of other pairings.


Title: The Flight of a Chicken Hawk.  
>Summary: Is there anything more splendid than watching griffons fly after sucking the blood from sacrificial rams and bulls? Terry very much doubts it. AU TerryxRex, hints of other pairings.<br>Disclaimer: I don't own any characters and collect no money from writing this.  
>Warnings: Lots of slash, reworking of mythology, AU. Did I mention the AU? Really.<br>Dedication: To **Rose Midnight Moonlight Black**on account of the feeling that I did not do so well on the last exchange. True, I put effort into it, but somehow I don't think it was enough. I'm actually hating how it turned out. So, I made this in repentance. I hope it works better, even if it's not quite what you actually wanted. It's still something, though, right?

Um, this is also kind of the result of a lot of binging on the crappiest soda on earth—it comes in glass bottles, but it can't be gourmet like packaging suggests—and watching a documentary on eroticism in foreign cultures, so…yeah. Enjoy if you can.

* * *

><p>-:-<br>_A hero will save me  
>Just in time<br>-Skillet._

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><p>He isn't <em>quite<em>a griffon, not from what Terry can make out when he and the rest of the flock fly in the air—graceful, cunning, utterly beautiful—over the woods Terry and his family occupy. He is too bronzed, with a too dark mane and strong muscles and his wings are…the dark being isn't quite sure how to put it. Unlike his mother, the gorgeous man doesn't have brown wings that look like they belong to the finest hawk that has ever swooped down on its prey, but like that of those strange birds that his friend Max—Maxine, the finest poet he has ever met, even more so than Sophocles and Homer, and a woman to boot (take that Orion, you sexist rat bastard in your place in the sky)—calls chicken hawks; long reaching and all white or grey with black spot and stripes here and there.

He isn't quite like the rest of his family because of his father—attractive and unaggressive centaur that he is, as his father said, a military man—and his mother's genetic mixing. By all rights, because of his sex he should have run with a herd and the look of an Arabian, but no, he was an aggressive griffon.

Had Terry been less of a coward because of his failed relationship with Dana—seriously, how could he have screwed that up? She was the most peace loving nymph he had ever met and his brothers had said so to his face (including Jason)—Rex would be his angel, and actually know he existed.

Sadly, this was not the case. He couldn't even bring himself to fly up, furred and leather wings erect and proud, and strike up a conversation with the man that, as far as the supernatural was concerned, still hated him a little for the incident when he was five and fell on top of him while he was bathing in the springs. So humiliating, gah!

As the last of the flock disappeared and were nothing more than faraway dots upon the horizon, Terry finished sucking on the neck of the animal that had been sacrificed at his family temple that day. When he had started in on it—just after the humans that had commenced the ceremony had skittered away, least he decide to prey on them instead—it had been warm and was a rather fetching, even in death, she-goat with flowers in a ring for each horn. Now it was a dried meat sack, mostly a sickly white where pink skin had been just an hour earlier and some of the skin at its joints had cracked and frayed.

Dropping the goat to the ground without much of a care—no doubt some wolf or harpy would come to consume the corpse later in the evening—Terry stretched and popped his back muscles and his wings; the great leather reaching twelve feet in length and quite a spectacle to everyone who wasn't one of his brothers.

He flapped once and was up into the air, heading south for a particular field that his family and the angels never dared go. He'd be sure to pick up some food on the way as well.

* * *

><p>The field Terry makes his way towards isn't exactly a field in the way most people think of one as. This field is always shrouded in mist and fog and so dark because the trees surrounding it on all sides blot out the sun. It would have been a perfect place for Terry and his family, had the creatures who once occupied it, not tried to kill them quite often.<p>

Those beasts—whatever they were, and who's to say they were named as his father had only ever called them _other_, _them_ or _those things_—had, a while ago, moved into the swamps and marshes that were hundreds of miles away; far from harpies, bats, satyrs, pixies, giants, hunters, humans and all the rest.

All, that is, except for a small sect that he sometimes thought of as friends.

Only two of them really talked to him, so he was careful landing on the one broken tree that had long fallen to the ground, perched perfectly atop it and waited with a basket of bread and some fruit. All he could do was wait as the fog engulfed him. And call out.

His voice shrieks a bat's cry, only once, and it echoes the clearing for a good minute, bouncing off of the trees nearby and over things he cannot see. It never takes long after calling out.

There is a crackling that one might connect to the noise would makes while scorched by fire and he doesn't see so much as feel two beings come his way.

The sect consists of three males and two females. The males stay away from Terry, but the females—glorious and beautiful in an otherworldly sense that even Terry doesn't possess—always talk with him. And they always look differently.

They have humanistic forms, like Terry, but they don't always use them. Sometimes they are animals: The smaller one was once a dove, a lioness, a rabbit, peacock; though always a sort of black and white color with bits of yellow. The older one was once a wolf, a hyena, cat, a crow; a sickly yellow in all forms. But there are other ways for them to look. Terry has a fond memory of the younger turning into a large raincloud that stayed five feet above his head and doused him for over an hour while talking, and the other took the form of white sand below his feet and listened.

Twin skree sounds meet his ears and they emerge into sight, each in the form of a bird. The younger, and he knows that it is her, as she is so quiet even in greeting, is phoenix—even if it is in mockery, as no phoenix ever took such subdued colors as white, black and yellow, with those creek blue eyes—and lands to his left, upon what was once a branch and is now more a stub. The other, beautiful and sly thing that she is, takes the form of a white and yellow barn owl and lands perfectly to his right, giving him a little bow in greeting, winter eyes landing on the food.

"Hello, Terry," Melanie says first, words a little awkward as the phoenix form was prone to having a sore throat from fire and burning down villages if angered, "What can we do for you today?"

"Melanie, Deidre," Terry smiles, taking the basket and just dumping it onto the ground, both of his girls flying down and using one clawed foot to pick up what they wanted, Melanie an apple and Deidre a large roll of bread, "I need your help with something."

Melanie takes her place back on the stub, a little clumsy on landing, but it's worth it for the food, and Deidre responds from her spot on the ground, pecking the roll thoughtfully, "You in love?"

"Of course he is," Melanie speaks, though it is a bit difficult to make out through apple pulp, "Look at him, he's all sweaty and gross and smells like—"

"He's been self-servicing, I know," Deidre answers back, sensing even as she has to bend her head awkwardly to get at a large piece of the bread, that the supernatural male is blushing heavily.

"I-you-I-don't—You horrible little things!"

They both laugh in little shrieks and coos, but calm down after a while, cutting him a break and Deidre takes her place back on the wood, large claws cutting into the bark and causing little pieces to cluster under her weight and pressure. She's kind, they both are, but she's better at reigning in her emotion—something Melanie's brother (large, beautiful and often taking the form of a black swan, a jackal, a bear) often tried to train his little sister to better handle.

"So," Melanie says, breathy and reserved again, cleaning one of her long wings, "Who's the lucky thing? A satyr, another bat, a hunter, human?"

The black haired young man—though he can hardly be called young as he only aged, what, every fifty years after puberty?—swallowed and scratched the nape of his neck. They wouldn't like his answer, couldn't like it very much as his love interest was part of a species they detested. They weren't prejudiced, but they simply didn't like griffons on account of the flying beasts having bad blood against the small sect from in the old days, before the _others_left. But, these two were friends, they were supportive, he could handle it.

"He's a griffon," he started, acknowledging the two sets of blue eyes either rolling back into their heads or blinking for him to continue, "Although, not quite a griffon."

Deidre blinks again, head tilting almost painfully to the side in that knowing look that Terry has come to respect as knowing practically everything, "Rex? That white winged, bronze fellow you raced against last year?"

"The exact one, I remember!" Melanie spoke excitedly, flapping her wings in joy, despite her general disposition for griffons, "I knew there was something there when you crashed into that tree! Oh, I am so proud for you!"

"But, I haven't spoken to him much," Terry muttered, "I'm pretty sure he hates me."

"Well, there's one way to figure that out for sure," Deidre stated, beak unable to form a smile, but Terry was sure one was there.

* * *

><p>"This is insane…"<p>

"Then why are you participating?"

"Yes, you've endeavored in more dangerous things."

"Like what?"

There is a long pause, only interrupted by sounds of the wind knocking into various beech leaves and some wind chimes hooked to branches that the humans from nearby villages put up to honor some of the centaurs or gargoyles or the more benevolent dragons that had helped them out, and Terry realizes he shouldn't have opened that door.

"Well, there was that time that you and Jason went to get an adrenaline high by flying through an Amazon training field."

"Then there was the time you, Damian and Barry got caught peeping at the nymphs—though why you'd bother when all of you are totally gay is beyond me—and got the crap beat out of you by Merina and her siblings."

"And that time where you antagonized the centaurs to see how fast you could go on foot—"

"Okay!"

There is silence after the exclamation for a moment, Terry's wings extended to their maximum height to instill terror into his little friends, but it is only a successful way to make them giggle internally. They are not afraid of his kind, he knows this. Their kind doesn't seem to be afraid of anything but each other, and he and his family have never been able to figure out why. So his wings retract to his body and he watches the skies again. His blue eyes are not like theirs; theirs are more predatory than his, even if they don't drink blood to survive and live fully during the night cycle like his family.

"If he doesn't show up," Terry starts, whispering, "Can we try again later? Maybe after the festival of Dionysus next week?"

Deidre and Melanie roll their eyes, but are, just as swiftly, leaving him, a shadow passing by like a blink of moth wings through fire. Which, really, was an accurate way to describe a griffon—Rex, oh, why must you show yourself now—passing swiftly by the round ball of the sun.

They are both above the treetops they had been hiding in for the upside of three hours, well before Terry and are locked onto Rex like well trained stars across the underside of the goddess of nighttime. He follows after a little more slowly, but only on account of not being used to leaving the safety of the trees, not because he's shy and, in order for this to work, he has to make an offer to Rex once they pass his chicken hawk wings.

How else can a bat get a griffon's attention, but to appeal to his urge to race in the air?

Deidre makes contact first, massive and lethal talons not drawn to kill—not at all like her sister, a disgraceful, horrible entity that Terry had run into numerous time and always in the form of a laughing canine sort of beast, completely made up of black fire that was so cold, it burned—but simply to tease. She collides softly into Rex's left wing and pulls out a loose feather, continuing onward as Melanie does something similar into colliding into Rex's other wing and taking a much less lose feather.

Rex was shocked at Deidre's impact, but dismissed her as nothing—after all, smaller birds stole his loose feathers all the time—and would have not cried out, if only the feather Melanie pulled, weren't quite so new. Thus, he let forth a loud caw or shriek. It was hard to tell, as Terry could vaguely make out the meaning of the cry as, "What the fuck—"

Terry accidentally lets out a light laugh and it causes Rex to look back just as the bat passes above him; Terry's humanoid foot unable to grab a feather in this form, but doing just as well with a little nudge at the other's head, causing Rex to hurdle away in indignation for a moment.

Terry watches as the griffon rights himself, but swiftly follows after the girls. They're supposed to be in a race after all and if he wants to keep Rex's attention, he has to make like he wants to win.

It works.

"Hey," Rex, dark, annoyed voice calling out as he flaps his wings with violent flaps and catches up to Terry, gliding beside the other as the girls make a spin in the air each, before continuing onwards, "What's your problem, bat?"

"I'm sorry," Terry laughs again, doing a similar spin as the girls, "But I'm kind of busy at the moment!"

And with that, Terry makes a heavy descent towards the ground, wings pressed inwards to himself, against his back. He doesn't quite hear Rex gasp as Terry is merely fifty feet from the ground, but there is a sweet, almost erotically charged moment that the young supernatural with remember for a good long time to come.

There is a shift in the air, like warm summer afternoons, behind Terry, and he can hear a sort of sound not unlike a sound he makes when he shifts to a more humanoid form. Just as he's twenty-five feet from hitting the ground and turning like he was supposed to, there are strong, bronzed and steady arms wrapping around his midsection.

After that, the air is literally sucked out of him as the griffon—oh, what a fabulous human form he has, even with those pleasantly strange wings—hauls him back upwards and towards the tree. As if Terry couldn't do it himself.

It's nice, in a way, even as Rex slams him into a large oak and the bark presses unpleasantly into his leathery wings.

* * *

><p>"Are all you bats completely insane?"<p>

Terry will make an estimated guess that by all bats, Rex is referring to all of his older brothers as they are all way more public and life endangering than he is.

The supernatural shakes his head, trying not to be too obvious in ogling the griffon before him, still pressing him into the tree, but with a slightly worried expression that, one week ago, Terry would have happily died for—let Hades take his soul and everything! But, he just lightly pushed the hand away from him and flopped into a more comfortable position against the bough they were on and folded his arms behind his head.

"Not all of us," he started, inwardly giddy at the fact that the other, hesitantly though it was, took a seat on the bough as well, still looking at the much younger man like he was brain damaged, "I was just in a race with my friends. Probably lost by now, though."

"You-you were going to break your neck the way you were falling like that!"

The griffon was blushing the same color of Max's pink hair, so Terry could assume that he had indeed been worried.

"No," Terry blushed back, one wing unfolding and stretching, sort of to put on a show, sort of a nervous tick, "I was going to do a roll like my friends. I'm good at those."

"…Oh."

"I appreciated the thought, though, if it makes things less awkward."

Rex scratched the back of his head, his own wings swaying back and forth behind him, "Um, well, thanks, I guess…um…"

Terry brought forth his hand, "Name's Terry by the way."

The other took his hand and, if Terry wasn't mistaken, blushed harder at the skin contact, "Rex. I've noticed you around."

"…Liar."

"No," Rex grinned, not at all put off that their hands hadn't removed themselves yet, "Really. I have. You almost beat me in that race last season. I hope you didn't break anything when you hit that tree, though. It looked painful, to say the least."

Maybe Hades could take his soul now?


End file.
